Terry DiMonte’s first day at CHOM … again

There are some things at CHOM that will always be constant: The name, the format, the listeners complaining that the same songs get played over and over, and every decade or so the program director deciding to shake things up by putting Terry DiMonte back on mornings.

Terry DiMonte reads the paper just before he starts his first show. (And by "the paper", I mean the section in Saturday's Gazette seemingly devoted to him)

It’s hard to imagine someone like Terry DiMonte being nervous about going on the radio. So I didn’t take it too seriously when he warned me the week before that he would be a nervous wreck on his first day.

But as he walked into Astral Radio’s Fort St. offices just after 5am, it was apparent he wasn’t quite 100% back in his chair and it would take some time to make him fully comfortable. He knew he would be judged from the moment he pressed the button that turns on his microphone, that thousands of people who knew about him coming back (either through the promotional campaign Astral put on or through the full-page piece in Saturday’s Gazette) would be tuning in just to hear his voice again.

He was worried about screwing up, absent-mindedly referring to Q107, the station he left a month earlier, instead of CHOM. Thankfully for him there were posters with CHOM’s logo and frequency all over the studio, so he needed only look up if he forgot.

In the end, he didn’t screw up. He got the call letters right, and the frequency, and the motto. He needed to be reminded of the phone number at one point, but mostly it was like he never left. And if he was nervous at all during his first break (“break” being how radio types refer to “the part where I’m on air”), he didn’t show it as he said hi:

The first song for DiMonte’s first show was Back in the Saddle by Aerosmith, which came as a suggestion on Facebook when overnight host Ronny Mack asked fans which should be the first song. DiMonte hadn’t thought of that song as an option, but considered it very appropriate considering he’s coming back from Calgary.

The team

Maureen Holloway joins Terry DiMonte on his first show

Shortly after the show began, DiMonte was joined in studio by Maureen Holloway. Holloway hosts is a big part of the morning show at Q107 in Toronto, and contributed to his former morning show at (a different) Q107 in Calgary. Both are owned by Corus. Because Corus no longer has a Montreal station with the sale of CFQR and others to Cogeco, she wasn’t on the air here and Astral managed to reach an agreement to bring her on to do a segment just before 6am and have it repeated at 7:15.

But because Holloway was just finishing a vacation and happened to be in Montreal, she came into the studio and joined DiMonte for a few hours, giving him someone to chat with on air. His actual cohost, Heather Backman, doesn’t start until Jan. 16.

Holloway’s arrival, a surprise for DiMonte, resulted in a reunion for the two friends who have worked together for many years, going back to when DiMonte hosted the morning show at Mix 96.

The show has two other regular contributors, both of whom come in studio to do their bits: Eric Engels with his once-daily Habs report and Trudie Mason with news on the hour.

The last contributor to the show is the guy behind the scenes, board operator Esteban Vargas. I recognized the name, but I didn’t know where I’d heard it. He suggested it might have been when he was doing odd shifts as a traffic reporter, which might have been true. But I think I actually recognize the name, oddly enough, from the Kelly Alexander Show podcast, even though I haven’t listened to that in quite a while.

Though he’s been at Astral for six years, and clearly knows what he’s doing, there were a few jokes about child labour when DiMonte posted a photo of Esteban online.

The magical computer box lists songs, commercials, traffic reports and all the other live an recorded sounds that go into a show.

Terry needs a clock

It was one of those things. If you see in any of these videos DiMonte looking ahead and up as he talks, he’s looking at a non-existent analog clock. There used to be one on the opposite wall, but it disappeared some time after he left in 2007. There’s one on the wall behind him, but that’s incredibly awkward to try to look at when you’re on the air from that chair.

DiMonte explains the reason best in the video, but the clock provides a reference not only for the time (which he can just read off his computer screen), but also how much of the show is left, and how long until the top of the hour. After decades in radio, it’s become second nature to him to see an hour in terms of the analog clock and to mentally plan accordingly.

DiMonte was repeatedly assured that a clock would be acquired and installed.

Media circus

There were quite a few people around to witness DiMonte’s return. In addition to myself, the studio was visited by cameras from:

Global Montreal

CTV Montreal

... and CHOM's own promotions department. (There was a second, more professional-looking camera also taking video)

Terry appreciates you calling

Plenty of DiMonte’s critics say he has a huge ego and everything is about him. While I’d never accuse any successful media personality of not having an ego, DiMonte spent quite a bit of time his first day answering calls from listeners, even with the studio filled with people and everything else going through his mind.

The calls were relatively short, and some had to be interrupted because DiMonte had to go back on the air. In general, they went something like this:

Even Andrew Carter at CJAD was getting calls from people welcoming DiMonte back, one Astral employee walked into the studio to report with a laugh. (I tweeted that, resulting later in Carter coming in and asking “who’s Fagstein?” – after a bit of nervous panic, we introduced ourselves, and it turns out he likes the blog.)

DiMonte also communicated via Facebook and Twitter, as he’s become a bit more adept at social media in the past few years.

Cake

A special cake was brought in to celebrate DiMonte's first show

A special “welcome back Terry” cake was brought in, much to DiMonte’s surprise. That missing bit on the left is where he stuck his finger in to taste the icing. “I bet that’s fantastic,” said the guy who continues to be worried that his return to Montreal is a one-way ticket to extreme weight gain.

What’s next?

In case there are still people in Montreal who don’t know about DiMonte’s return, the big promotional push will come next week when Heather Backman joins the show and things start moving on all four wheels. I haven’t been told of any extreme promotional plans, just the usual contests (including their “man cave” watch-the-Super-Bowl-with-Terry deal) and advertising/marketing.

Maureen Holloway and Terry DiMonte share a hug as she departs for Toronto

Charles Adler really couldn’t hide his disdain of the occupiers. Is Terry being a little bit two faced here? On his own blog he posts this http://www.chom.com/blog/TerryDiMonte/blogentry.aspx?BlogEntryID=10327429
where he says “Montreal really knows how to put on a protest!” then shows some cows in a field in Alberta as their protesters. Is this supposed to be a pat on the back of Montreal protesters, while on the Adler show he is telling them it is time to get lost? See the occupy movement is global in nature, just because Canada is better off and Calgary only has 3% unemployment doesn’t mean that we should not care about what is going on in the rest of the world. During Christmas every radio station plays Band Aid’s “Do they know its Christmas” why should these mega millionaire care about hunger in the world, they have food on their table, why should we care, we feast on turkey? Terry always has fund raisers for Sun Youth, should we care about that, I get my food o.k I work hard for my money? See this is skewed right wing thinking that has to stop, look past your derision snorting noses and think globally, big picture. We should all care about everything going on in the world, not only what is happening in our yards. That is what the occupiers are trying to get across.

Terry and Peppermint Patty were great in the old days. I loved Ralph Lockwood (CKGM) and Ron Able, who preceded Terry, was the funniest – especially his Friday show. CHOM was great in the 70’s when they would play tracks of rain for hours and this great soap opera. Does anyone remember the name of it? Schnurmacher used to do the entertainment in the early ’80s, and he and Terry had a good, easy banter. Coco preceded Schnurmacher, and used to tease Terry about knowing only one French word.

Nothing’s the same anymore …

If Tootall leaves, that will really be the end of an era. He and the CHOM baby are the only authenticity left on that station.

Sorry for the sad reminiscing. In its inception, CHOM was innovative, and now, it’s just old and tired (or maybe that’s just me). Think I will try out K103. Always liked Ted Bird – except when he would read his “How I spent my summer vacation” compositions(!) Another good reason to listen to K103 – Sonny Joe Cross!! Is he still there? Talk about an original! I asked him to play Nanci Griffith a few years ago – he said she was a “newcomer”! (She is a country and folk singer/songwriter who came on the scene in the ’70s). So he played me three Nancy Wilson songs instead! That’s Sonny!

I honestly hear zero chemistry between TD and Heather B. I’m wondering based on Dimonte’s comments that he hopes they’ll get Ted Bird back if she’s a kind of place filler to hold down the job until they can lure Bird back.

When she does speak, it’s nothing too earth shaking. This morning it sounded like she misunderstood the lyrics of the new Springsteen song to be some sort of patriotic song and called it cheesy when in fact it’s more of a protest song (Born in the USA all over again).

Plus, her voice sounds about two octaves lower than when she was on Virgin. Either she’s got a bad cold, has been listening to old Peppermint Patty tapes to try and sound like her, or else Virgin piped helium into their studio!

Come to think of it, she’s not a bad match for TD as the lack of chemistry means that so far he’s been mostly just shutting up and playing the music that CHOM’s new ad compaign claims is all that matters! I’d rather she stick around then Ted Bird swallow his pride and come back as I always felt DiMonte and Bird brought out the absolute worst, juvenile sides of each other, sort of like two teenage boys who aren’t accepted by the popular kids so they huddle in a corner and tell fart jokes.

I am enjoying the new show with Terry. Music is good, and his voice offers a familiar comfort. I agree with others though about Heather B. When is she going to speak? She is going to have to come prepared to get a word in edgewise with Terry. If you remember his recent co-hosts in Montreal, Ted, and Kim Rossi, they both had to be aggressive to be heard. Heather is more than capable having heard her own shows on other stations. I am looking forward to the chemistry that will hopefully happen between them.

A small point…Maureen Holloway is not the host of Q107’s morning show in Toronto.
John Derringer (who worked at Chom in the 90’s) is the host. The morning show here is called “Derringer in the morning.” Maureen appears on th Derringer show four times a day.